


Helpless

by theWickedWitchofFeels



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Genre: Angst, F/M, Skyward Sword, uhhh its sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 15:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18137663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theWickedWitchofFeels/pseuds/theWickedWitchofFeels
Summary: Link was the one who had kept his promise. He had come to wake her up.Are you ready to see your hero die, Hylia?Link was there. His sword glowed with holy light in his hand.-You are wrong, Demise.In that moment, she had never been less Hylia.She was Zelda, and she was watching the love of her life fight a god.





	Helpless

Zelda couldn’t breathe.

Everything had gone downhill faster than Zelda could have believed. She had finally come out of her thousand-year sleep, finally felt Link’s warm arms around her again after so long. She’d even been happier than she thought she’d be to see Groose again. Both of them had clearly grown and changed so much. 

Then - _him._ That flamboyant minion of Demise’s, Ghirahim, had swooped in. She’d tried to fight, and she’d sensed Link’s anger next to her, but it all happened too fast, and all she knew was blackness. 

Until she didn’t. Until she felt agony gripping her chest, piercing deep into her where the goddess was most apparent. She vaguely heard Ghirahim cavorting around her in some perverted ceremonial dance, but a fever had gripped her body, making it hard to understand anything. She retreated deep inside herself, trying to escape, but there was nowhere she could go. 

She heard Link, his determined footsteps running towards where she lay. Ghirahim huffed and tossed her high into the air, where she lay suspended with fever paralyzing her.

Helpless. 

The next thing that Zelda knew, she was being swallowed into darkness.

 

It wasn’t any consolation to her, but that Ghirahim seemed to be dead, judging from how violently Demise ripped the sword from his weakened chest-gem. Zelda - Hylia - whoever she was, she couldn’t suppress a shudder, even if he had been what Groose would call a pile of loftwing shit. 

_You recognize this blade, Hylia._ Demise said mockingly. _With this, I slew your so-called Hero. With this, I took your immortality. And with this now I will take this boy you chose._

Zelda was watching from Demise’s eyes, staring down at Link far below her. His brow was tensely knitted in an angry scrunch that would have been heart-meltingly adorable in any other situation. His eyes blazed with rage such as Zelda had never seen him. He raised the Master Sword between them, and Zelda thought she felt the spirit within flaring. 

Demise was talking to Link, but Zelda could not make out what he was saying over the voice he tormented her with at the same time. 

_How does it feel, Hylia? To be helpless, to watch one you so foolishly loved die, knowing you led him to this fate like a hog to slaughter? How did you think this would end?_

Zelda saw Demise fling her lifeless body away, somewhere above them. Link was distracted instantly, running to catch her, but far too late - Zelda couldn’t see what happened after. It mattered little.

_Let that pathetic mortal body rot here with the rest of this world. For your hero, on the other hand - I have prepared something special._

The twisted god stepped through a portal of shadow into a strangely peaceful place. Blue sky, like that over her home - both her homes - but empty of Loftwings, of any life whatsoever. Water covered the ground, making it look like the sky was both above and below them. 

_Do you really think your hero will show up? Perhaps he will be a coward, and choose to live a little longer rather than save a goddess already dead._

Zelda longed to close her eyes, to block out Demise’s voice, but there was nowhere she could hide from him. She knew Demise was wrong. She knew Link. She’d seen the look in his eyes. He had the look of one who would rend the very heavens. 

And it would be his death. 

She had no idea if Link could stand up to Demise. Objectively, she knew that he had grown much in the time they had been apart, had completed every challenge set by herself to temper the master sword and by the dragons to complete the song of the hero - had even trapped Demise himself back under her seal three times, each time more powerful than the last. But Demise was a god: A god of war, of chaos, of destruction. And Link…

Link was the little boy who had once fallen from a tree trying to catch a bug, whom she’d found trying and failing to hold back tears. Link was the boy who had recklessly flown at night, after only a short while of having his Loftwing, to bring her pumpkin cider because she’d been giving him the cold shoulder. 

Link was the one who had kept his promise. He had come to wake her up. 

_Are you ready to see your hero die, Hylia?_

Link was there. His sword glowed with holy light in his hand. 

_-You are wrong, Demise._

In that moment, she had never been less Hylia. 

She was Zelda, and she was watching the love of her life fight a god. 

 

The ground beneath their feet trembled with the impact of their footfalls as they fought - or, more accurately, with Demise’s, as the gigantic demon stomped about with all the grace of a Loftwing in a pottery shop. Against Link, though, his size and power were nearly as much hindrance as they were boon, as the spry boy danced back from his blade every time he swung it and struck when he could. When he did, Zelda felt pain as if the sacred blade had pierced her instead of Demise; but her agony went unheard.

The first time Demise landed a hit, Zelda recoiled in horror, feeling as if it was her striking Link with that horrible blade. But Link held up his shield with the face of the Goddess on it, deflecting the blade as if it were nothing but a branch in the wind and striking again. 

The next time, however, he wasn’t quick enough.

_Link!_

Demise’s blade crashed through Link’s shield. Link twisted away just in time to avoid being cleaved in half, but one of the sword’s tines caught his shoulder, ripping through cloth and skin. Zelda screamed as she saw Link’s blood coat Demise’s sword and drip into the glassy water at his feet. 

_“Zelda…” Link sniffled. He sat on a stool in his kitchen with his pant leg rolled up. Practically his whole leg was covered in blood, making Zelda’s breath catch in her throat.  
_

_“Link! What happened?”_

_“A - a chu-chu got me. I-I wanted to get you one of the flowers that grow on the other side of the waterfall cave, b-but…” He shook his head, hiding his tear-and-snot-covered face in his arm._

_Zelda pulled his arm away from his face and hugged him tightly. “Link! It’s okay. You shouldn’t have gone in there though - “ She added sternly, pulling back just a bit. “There are plenty of flowers on Skyloft, you should’ve - “_

_“But they look so pretty! Like you!” Link said, immediately blushing as he realized what had slipped out. Zelda thought she heard his mother chuckle. “I-I just mean.. They’d look nice in your hair.”_

_Zelda stayed there holding his hand as Larke gently sponged the blood from his leg. It wasn’t so bad once she had; the chu-chu had just scraped off a bit of skin a little smaller than Zelda’s palm. Link’s mother wound a cloth bandage around his leg and tied it there tightly._

_“There you are.” She tapped Link’s knee, getting him to look at her. “No more adventures until you know how to protect yourself, you hear me?”  
_

_“Y-yes mom,” Link took a deep, shuddery breath, lying his head on Zelda’s shoulder. “I-I think I wanna stay inside.”_

_“Okay…”_

His blue eyes met Demise’s, blazing with pain and rage. Zelda wanted to yell at him to get himself out of there, leave her to her fate, but there was no way out without Demise’s death, and she had no voice anymore. 

She was scared.

She didn’t want to die. 

Hadn’t she already, though? 

Surely death would be more merciful than this. 

_Not for you, my sweet Hylia. There will be no afterlife for you. Only watching everything you have foolishly worked for crumble and die._

She felt Demise roar as Link landed another, crushing blow. For a fleeting moment she thought perhaps Link had actually done it, had actually slew the beast - but Demise sprang back up just as quickly, lightning beginning to crackle around him. 

_Skyward Strikes may not work in such an unholy place as this… But Fi’s vessel is metal. Perhaps they can, in another way…_

Hope fluttered in Zelda’s heart. Link seemed to have reached the same conclusion she had, lifting the Master Sword high above his head until lightning struck it. Demise was too quick though, canceling out the beam he slung with one of his own and striking again with inhuman speed. Link just barely managed to get out of the way to not be struck and paralyzed. The ground shook, and the clap of lightning echoed in Zelda’s mind...

_“Mama!” Link whimpered, hiding his face in his blanket. Zelda had never been particularly afraid of storms, but even she felt anxious at Link’s obvious terror. She ducked under the blanket with Link, trying to reassure him. She’d been about to go home to the Academy when it started; she knew that her father wouldn’t be angry once he knew that she rode out the storm with Link’s family._

_“It’s alright Link, it’s just a summer thunderstorm. You’re safe.” Larke rubbed Link’s back soothingly._

_“B-b-but what if the sky snakes try to gobbles us up? Or the w-whole island shakes apart?”_

_“The skytails know to keep their distance, we have strong knights to protect us even in a storm. And this old island has weathered much worse storms than this.”_

_Link’s round, tearful eyes looked unconvinced. Zelda hugged him tightly._

_“How about this. I’ll read you both a story so you don’t have to listen to that nasty storm." Larke smiled softly, reaching for their favorite book. "Maybe by the time I’m done, the storm will be over and done too, and you can go out and play in the puddles.”_

_Zelda perked up at the mention of puddles._

Zelda felt electricity course through her - through Demise’s - body - paralyzing and burning until her screams echoed along with the evil god’s. 

Finish him, Link! She screamed even as agony consumed her, gathering all her remaining strength and sanity to batter at Demise’s mind. She bombarded him with what she knew he could not understand - sunlight, memories of happy times with Link, the time Link’s father taught her to use a bow, louder and louder, until he was blinded and overwhelmed with pain and the unknown. 

It bought Link just enough time to sink the Master Sword deep into their chest. 

Just before Zelda was overcome by agony and sank into unconsciousness, she felt Demise’s hand thrust up in his dying throes and crush Link’s chest. 

 

Zelda woke up in a cold sweat, still feeling the sacred blade splitting her chest and Link’s chest crack in her hand. 

Somewhere, a Kikwi crooned one of their lullabies to a fussy baby. Crickets chirped. She heard the raspy sound of Blue snoring. 

Beside her, Link rolled over and opened his eyes. 

“Nightmare?” Once a man of few words, always a man of few words. She nodded.

She remembered waking up after the battle to find Link, miraculously, by her side and her back in her body. A fairy had saved him from death, though he still bore marks of Demise’s clawlike fingernails on his bare chest. She had truly believed them both dead, yet here they were now, on the surface, together, and with a tiny life born of them both in her belly. 

Link wrapped his strong arms around her, rubbing her belly gently. He kissed her temple. “Do you want anything? Tea?” 

Zelda shook her head. “Just hold me.” 

Link obliged, lying back down with her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beat strong. 

“You need to trim your chest hair.” she said, and felt Link laugh. 

It took a while, but eventually Link’s even breathing soothed her back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Larke is Fangirl's lovely OC of Link's mother, go read her fics about her at https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndelynKinsey/pseuds/AndelynKinsey


End file.
